Echoes
by TheRavenclawNinja
Summary: Echoes of the past from various characters, all set before Philosopher's Stone. Drabbles for mackgirl's "Characters" challenge.
1. prefect

_prompt four: prefect_

_Percy Weasley_

The small auburn-haired boy patiently observed his older brother polish his already gleaming gilded badge, the same way he had all seventeen other times that day.

The older boy looked up. "Maybe someday you'll get one of your own," he said with a brief smile.

His brother didn't respond; he continued to stare at that badge, waiting for his day to polish and admire one of his own.

Bill's prefect badge shone so brightly to Percy, brighter to him than to the others.


	2. common room

_prompt three: common room _

_Narcissa Black_

On the cusp of war, the Slytherin common room is a very strange place, indeed. Their pureblooded pride, their reckless ambition, their hunger for power draws the to the Dark, some quickly, some quietly.

Narcissa, the dainty princess of the Blacks, has watched the Gryffindors and the Slytherins clash all year, taking their fear of impending chaos out on their ancient enemies.

It is not requested of her that she join a side; it goes unspoken that the Dark is her rightful place.

But she's not like Crouch, or Snape, or Nott. Murder, she thinks, is awfully wasteful, and her prejudices, while deep, are assumed and not asked.

The Dark clouds of the common room are no longer home for the tiaraed Narcissa.


	3. locket

_prompt nineteen: locket_

_Barty Crouch, Jr. _

The flickering fire is the only illumination in this ornate, expansive room; the only illumination on his pale and distorted face.

I pause reverently. "My Lord," I whisper.

"Bartemius," he replies in his high, cold voice. "I have a…request for you."

"I am at your beck and call, my Lord."

"Naturally," he muses. He picks up a chain from his lap; it clanks loudly. "Come closer, my boy."

I step forward slowly. He holds up the chain for my inspection.

The egg-shaped gilded pendant glitters in his shrouded hands. I make out a serpentine figure, emerald in color.

"A Slytherin relic, my Lord?" I say softly, raising my eyebrows.

"A beautiful one," he whispers lovingly. His unearthly hands graze the locket; they seem to savor the touch. He directs his face to me again--I cannot see his eyes. "You are my most faithful servant, Bartemius."

My face flushes, but my voice stays steady. "I live to serve the Dark Lord."

"Which is why I show you this, Bartemius. I can trust only you with my greatest achievement. You shall die before any person touches it. You shall die to protect this." He holds his hand towards the fireplace; the flames jump up between the crevices of timber, lighting his red eyes, more intense than ever.

"I shall serve you admirably, my Lord," I reply nervously, hoping he does not sense the hitch in my voice.

He stares at me a moment longer with is scarlet pupils. "You may go, Bartemius."

I bow and walk out briskly, pompously, with an air of pride and importance that will make my aristocratic counterparts envious.

I pause for a moment, outside the door, hearing a faint voice, high and cold.

"You're in good hands now, dear locket."


	4. space

_prompt eight: space_

_Aurora Sinistra_

Aurora hates the nursing home: hates sitting at her ailing Muggle mother's bedside, hates putting on the mask that says _It's all okay_ with a syrupy smile. But she's the only one Mum has left.

"Oh, Aurora," she says excitedly. "This new job will be wonderful. Professor!"

Her daughter nods. She never did have the sweet manner of her mother.

The elderly woman goes on. "You're going to study space, just like you've always wanted to."

Aurora stifles a chuckle. She finds it humorous that her mother calls it _space_, like it's a great big expanse of nothingness, when it was so much more.

"Just like I've always wanted, Mum," the newly titled Professor echoes.

It is well after nightfall when Aurora leaves. She gazes towards the Liverpool sky, tracing Orion, a sentimental favorite.

The stars seem to whisper secrets in her ear, a hushed love on a summer night.


	5. noise

_prompt fourteen: noise_

_Severus Snape _

The cheers, the laughs, the roars, the _noise_ is faint, halted by walls and doors and silence, but it is _deafening _to him.

_How can they celebrate when she is dead?_, he thinks. _She's dead. _

The Dark Lord has betrayed him, lied to him, and thus, he has betrayed Lily. Killed her. He, Severus Snape, has killed her. He is guilty, and she is gone.

He turns away furiously from Hogsmeade, towards the hushed and shrouded castle. He no longer has a purpose.


	6. box

_prompt twenty: box_

_Oliver Wood_

Every year, every Christmas, there was always the same box: long, thin, and deliciously wrapped by his meticulous mother. And it always contained the same thing--a brand-new broomstick. That's what you get when your father owns Quality Quidditch Supplies.

His twelfth Christmas is the most outstanding. A Nimbus 900, glittering in its box, in honor of his newly crowned position on the Gryffindor House Team.

He always flies it on Christmas morning, no matter the wind, the cold, the snow. His twelfth Christmas was no different. He smiles at his mother, nods and his father, and kicks off the roof, savoring the icy air on his face.


	7. squib

_prompt twenty-two: squib_

_Arabella Figg_

He doesn't love her like he loves the others.

Erasmus Figg holds his daughter's hand on the Platform, proudly seeing his wonderfully Gryffindor son off, thinking he'll never see Arabella take her pure-blooded place at Hogwarts.

She's just as bright-maybe even more so-as the rest of them, but Erasmus can't be proud of her. She's failed from the moment she was born, because of the blood in her veins.

The shameful blood of a Squib.

* * *

**A/N: **That was the first round of drabbles; I hope you enjoyed them! The next will likely be about Sirius, then Helena Ravenclaw, Lily I and James I. Please review!


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